Two cocaine conspirators convicted in February, after a riveting federal trial that showed how Mexican cartel drugs reach Baltimore street corners (“Corner Cartel,” Feature, Feb. 23), say newly shared government evidence contradicts important testimony the prosecutors’ star witness made before the jury. In May 5 filings by their attorneys, the defendants, who are scheduled to be sentenced later this month, asked U.S. District Judge William Quarles to dismiss their indictment after granting their request for a new trial.

The two men, Jose Cavazos and Wade Coats, were convicted on Feb. 7 after about an hour of jury deliberations. The most compelling narrative provided during the five days of testimony came from Alex Noel Mendoza-Cano, a government cooperator who has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing in Texas for his own drug-dealing crimes. Mendoza-Cano told the jury, at length and in great detail, of his exploits as a key operative for the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels, distributing large loads of drugs across the eastern half of the United States, including in Baltimore, and returning the cash proceeds back to cartel suppliers in Mexico. He swore that Cavazos and Coats helped bring cartel drugs to Baltimore.

The defendants’ attorneys—Ivan Bates and Thomas Donnelly representing Coats, and Marc Zayon on behalf of Cavazos—say in their filings that two and a half months after the trial, prosecutors mailed to them 33 pages of notes detailing what Mendoza-Cano told an investigator. They argue that the contents of those notes, which should have been provided to them well in advance of the trial pursuant to the case’s discovery agreement, would have given them a host of ways to devastate Mendoza-Cano’s credibility before the jury.

Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein wrote in a May 6 e-mail to City Paper that “after the trial, our prosecutors learned that a federal agent in Texas previously had interviewed Mr. Mendoza-Cano. They obtained the interview report and disclosed it to defense counsel on April 25. It is obvious that our prosecutors were acting in good faith.” He added that “we believe that the information in the report would not have made any difference to the outcome of the trial.”

Bates, reached by phone on May 6, said, “I can’t let you look at the documents” because they “possibly could be sealed” pursuant to the discovery agreement. “But the documents go to the heart of our defense and the government’s case,” he added. “Any time you have a witness, you go after questions of their credibility and whether they are biased. These documents strongly show, in our view, that there are a number of credibility issues and bias issues with Mr. Mendoza-Cano.”

In the filings, the attorneys write that “the materials contain admissions of Alex Mendoza-Cano, contrary to his testimony, as to his direct participation in murders, kidnappings, rapes, robberies, thefts, extortion, bribery, and other criminal conduct.” The notes also show Mendoza-Cano’s “extraordinary bias” because they “provided information that he severely beat Mr. Cavazos’ brother and attempted to murder Mr. Cavazos.”

> Email Van Smith